


An Eternal Element

by mango22



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, post s5 future fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mango22/pseuds/mango22
Summary: Merlin dreams of Morgana.
Relationships: Merlin/Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	An Eternal Element

**I tell myself that the sea ceaselessly thundering these days and nights in front of me is why all my dreams are filled with your presence. Thus, in my heart, you are united with an eternal element, the sea.”**

**-Nikos Kazantzakis**

The ocean provides comfort and doles out sorrow in equal measures. 

He lives in a hut nearby. Isolated, cut off from the rest of the world, with only his thoughts and memories for company. He doesn’t mind. 

Most days he is grateful for this solitude. Grateful that there is not a single soul out there who knows where he lives, how he’s doing. What’s his name? 

_ What is my name? _ He catches himself wondering, and a faint voice will whisper back to him  _ “Merlin, it’s good to see you again.” _

_ “Is it? Is it really?”  _ he wants to reply but the echo is already gone, a wisp of smoke vanishing into the debilitated corners of his mind. Some days he believes his whole brain might be rotting from inside out.

Maybe he would welcome that. Yet that was not written in his fate.  _ Not my destiny. _

His destiny was to live. Hers was to die.

_ No,  _ he corrects himself.  _ It was to haunt me. _

For the ocean reminds him of her. 

The wave-like tresses falling down her back, blue-green eyes filled with tears, and her strong and formidable nature; unyielding in the face of every calamity.

The ocean bowed to no one, and neither did she. 

Till her last breath, till that final deception, she stood tall and proud. 

_ High Priestess, where are you now? _

_ “Right here Merlin.”  _ Long, soft fingers grazed his heart. A solitary tap placed against the barely beating organ in his chest.  _ “Right here where I belong.” _

_ Where you’ve always been.  _ He wants to tell her, so he says it out loud, speaks out each word slowly to the emptiness around him. 

The silence is deafening.

So he says it again and again, fills the air with his cries until he’s choking on his words. Until he can’t breath. 

She’s poison in his lungs. 

Merlin’s vision slowly blurs out as he hears her laughing in the distance.

On days like this, he will run into the ocean like a mad man. 

_ Take me, please take me too.  _ He’ll scream without making any noise, as the water fills up his chest and he finds himself sinking to the bottom. Yet the ocean never fulfills its promise. 

It always returns him to the shore. Safe, sound, and miserable. The salt pours into every open wound on his body, the cuts and scratches stinging with a burning sensation. 

He coughs and looks up, just in time to see. The specter of his past staring back at him. As beautiful as the first day he saw her. 

He takes her in, breathing in the salty ocean air and somehow her, all at the same time. Merlin inhales deeply, afraid to dispel the illusion, to break the moment.

She smiles like they’re old friends, like she used to before everything went to hell.  _ “It’s good to see you again.” _

_ “Morgana.”  _ he calls out, for he could never forget her name. Everything else, but not that. Not her. 

_ “Merlin.”  _ She extends her arm, an earnest look on her face. He mirrors her and reaches out, aching to hold her just one more time.

And he feels it, the ghost of her touch. Hands in his unruly hair, warm body against his wiry frame, a soft kiss tenderly pressed to his cracked lips. 

He loses himself in her, closing his eyes and relishing every moment.

When he opens them, she’s gone. 

And yet she lingers. 

In the skies, in the clouds, in the ocean.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw that quote and got all up in my feels....


End file.
